1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to methods and systems for monitoring and controlling bridges, buildings, power transmission, pipelines, tunnels, roadways, and other infrastructure.
Bridge operation is providing the required functionality of capacity and safe, and secure transport over an obstacle connecting two geographical points for the entire life of the bridge in an economical manner.
Bridges are engineered designed structures built out of various materials including metal, concrete, and wood. Bridges are designed to function for a targeted life cycle that is normally about 50 years and designed for a set of operating parameters including level of traffic, weather and other conditions for that specific bridge. The design of a bridge is done so its performance will exceed the greatest required functionality with a factor of safety allowing it to meet the requirements of safe and secure transport for its entire life cycle. In the absence of future information on bridge functionality including changing requirements for capacity and actual use in the future adds additional requirements for a large factor of safety for the design of a bridge. In addition, unknown factors will affect the life of a bridge including impact both minor and major from vehicles or boats colliding with the bridge structure, unknown flaws in construction and unexpected deterioration of materials over the life of the bridge will all add to the difference between performance of the operating bridge and the designed bridge.
Each bridge design is unique, but most are based on standardized design techniques and code requirements for engineering of civil structures. It is difficult to predict the performance of one bridge versus another because the unique design and operating parameters make each bridge a unique entity with regards to performance and operation. Therefore, measurement and prediction of the performance of bridges and other civil structures is very challenging. If real time information about the specific operating conditions of a specific bridge were available along with information about the condition of critical elements of the bridge structure, a better determination of the performance of the specific bridge could be analyzed and the performance and economics of bridge operation improved.
For all these reasons it is desirable to provide methods and systems for providing monitoring, control, operations and analysis on a real time basis in an economical manner for each individual bridge. The methods and systems would provide both central (remote) and local (at the structure) monitoring and control of conditions of individual bridges in real time as those bridges are in use. In addition the system would be able to respond in real time to safety issues and control access to the bridge. Individual analysis over time would allow for adaptive learning of the specific bridge condition and how it is changing based on how it responds to various disturbances and usage. Centralized information, utilizing learning techniques such as statistical pattern recognition, on a set of bridges would allow for operation of the network of bridges to maintain access to the geography the bridges support. Centralized monitoring and control would also improve the economics of bridge operations. Information on a network of bridges in a centralized database would increase the ability to analyze and compare similar bridges and bridges of different design to allow learning across the entire bridge network influencing real time performance and future bridge design.
2. Description of the Background Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,179,940 describes systems and methods for monitoring bridge performance. U.S. Patent Publ. No. 2012/0283964 describes a wireless stress detector that is used in data gathering networks.